D&D 5E What is the "Simple" Full Casting Class?

[DEFCON 1]

The simplest spellcasting class is the one that the DM makes a pre-gen character sheet of... selecting only a small amount of the easiest spells for the class for this character to have "prepared". And copy/pasting/editing the spell blocks out of the book and onto a Word document so that the DM can then edit the description down to get rid of all the superfluous "special information" and "special rules" that the new player doesn't actually need to know.

A player gets handed a Wizard character sheet whose spells are Magic Missile, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Shield, and Thunderwave, (plus two pew-pew Cantrips) there should be very little confusion or difficulty for that player running that character.

Then as the DM, you just figure out the core competencies of the player and whether or not they are willing or can handle reviewing and learning the Spellcasting and Spells of that magic-using class, and let them decide for themselves if they want to start adding more magic to their repertoire. If they don't? At level up you just choose two more spells for them to add to their list that are simple to use.

As a DM you either need to be comfortable holding some of your player's hands... or be comfortable not inviting them to your table if you don't wish to do so and their inability to grasp the game is that much of a hardship for you.

 

[FrogReaver]

Druid is the most complex.

 

[Guest 7037866]

Spamming Eldritch Blast is just so weak though - does anyone actually do this in real life and not as a baseline DPS metric for youtube videos?

I played in CoS and had a Sorlock with EB+Agonising+Eldritch Spear+Spell Sniper. I nearly soloed one encounter because I was getting two beams, had insane range for the encounter, and did good damage.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Each spell is one more subsystem.

As I said (actually I said class features but same basic thing), technically correct, but not the whole story.

All casters have multiple spells. Wizards have the biggest list to choose from at character creation, and after that they generally have the smallest list to choose from for daily preparation and no more reason to switch them than a cleric or paladin. And if they aren't switching them, they just have a list of spells known on their sheet like everyone else.

My experience is that's how most wizards get played.

At that point everyone is roughly equal in having a list of spells and cantrips known and choosing which to cast.

The wizard has only that to worry about, while the rest have that same thing plus additional systems to interact with and decide to use or not on a round by round basis.

 

[TwoSix]

My vote is for cleric. Cleric has a lot of volume, but it doesn't really have a lot of complexity.

1) Preparing spells is more laborious, and domain spells mean cleric has more spells than other casters. But preparation is also the easiest to fix, and your choices make less impact overall. The known spell and spellbook casters agonize over spell choice much more than clerics (and druids).

2) It has a full kit of weapon and armor proficiencies, and very few features to complicate non-combat. Generally, if you're not fighting, you can mostly ignore your character sheet. (Some spell choices can complicate that, but that's a choice on the player's part to pick something they actively want to use, like find traps or zone of truth.)

3) Very little benefit from multiclassing. Wizard, sorcerer, and non-hexblade warlocks are all quite squishy and benefit a lot from an armor multiclass.

4) Cleric spells are straightforward. Guiding bolt, bless, healing word, spiritual weapon and spirit guardians can carry a cleric well into the upper levels without a significant drop in power. Other spell picks are more for fun than to provide actually necessary utility.

5) A lot of people voted warlock, which I can see, but my personal view is that pact magic is much more challenging for beginners than standard 5e neo-Vancian. Auto-scaling has always proven confusing to new players, IMX, and being on a different rest schedule than any other caster, on top of the heavily limited slots, to me doesn't make warlock the best entrance point.

The only thing cleric really needs is a ranged attack cantrip that's an attack roll rather than a save.

 

[FrogReaver]

My vote is for cleric. Cleric has a lot of volume, but it doesn't really have a lot of complexity.

1) Preparing spells is more laborious, and domain spells mean cleric has more spells than other casters. But preparation is also the easiest to fix, and your choices make less impact overall. The known spell and spellbook casters agonize over spell choice much more than clerics (and druids).

2) It has a full kit of weapon and armor proficiencies, and very few features to complicate non-combat. Generally, if you're not fighting, you can mostly ignore your character sheet. (Some spell choices can complicate that, but that's a choice on the player's part to pick something they actively want to use, like find traps or zone of truth.)

3) Very little benefit from multiclassing. Wizard, sorcerer, and non-hexblade warlocks are all quite squishy and benefit a lot from an armor multiclass.

4) Cleric spells are straightforward. Guiding bolt, bless, healing word, spiritual weapon and spirit guardians can carry a cleric well into the upper levels without a significant drop in power. Other spell picks are more for fun than to provide actually necessary utility.

5) A lot of people voted warlock, which I can see, but my personal view is that pact magic is much more challenging for beginners than standard 5e neo-Vancian. Auto-scaling has always proven confusing to new players, IMX, and being on a different rest schedule than any other caster, on top of the heavily limited slots, to me doesn't make warlock the best entrance point.

The only thing cleric really needs is a ranged attack cantrip that's an attack roll rather than a save.

Yea. I arrived at cleric too. Channel divinity is an additional option but it’s really simple. Cleric spells are mostly really simple.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yea. I arrived at cleric too. Channel divinity is an additional option but it’s really simple. Cleric spells are mostly really simple.

Still gotta play 'Guess the DM's plans' like all prep casters.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don’t find warlock simple to build or play. The limited slots put a lot of weight or your spell castings. EB is simple. Invocations are not.

 

[FrogReaver]

Still gotta play 'Guess the DM's plans' like all prep casters.

Well, You don’t ever have to prep different spells and most cleric spells are really general purpose, heals or damage.

 

[FrogReaver]

The Fear Of Loss of DPS Is A Path To The Dark Side....

At least we didn’t label it ED for effective damage.